Doctor On The Boil

by Richard Gordon

  ‘You’re not really exercising your rights under the charter? Won’t you have second thoughts, Lancelot? And some consideration for the rest of us, trying to perform our difficult tasks in the hospital, which is already at sixes and sevens through the rebuilding? I implore you to forget the harebrained idea. Can’t I appeal to your better nature?’ he ended hopefully.

  ‘I have no nature better than my everyday one, enjoyed by the world in general. I don’t see why I shouldn’t care for a patient or two of Bingham’s. It’s not that I’m asking to be paid for it. On the contrary, I am giving fifty thousand quid for the privilege.’ He poured himself another cup of coffee. ‘No, Dean, I will not renounce my rights. Indeed, I should be very surprised if by tonight I haven’t the knife in my hand again.’

  The dean groaned. ‘Perhaps marriage will have some effect on your strong views?’

  ‘None whatsoever.’

  ‘When’s the ceremony, anyway? Not for some months, you said.’

  ‘Did I? You must have misunderstood me. It’s a week tomorrow.’

  ‘So soon?’

  ‘No time to waste, I feel. I telephoned Tottie last night, and she is going ahead with the arrangements. She’s extremely efficient at the admin stuff, naturally. I have fortunately persuaded her to hold the party in a registry office, though quite a gaggle will be coming along to see the fun.’

  ‘If you would still like to take up my offer of a free world cruise for your honeymoon, I’m sure it could be arranged even at this short notice.’

  ‘I’ll think about it. Though I don’t want to be too long away from St Swithin’s. A fellow like Bingham, with absolutely no sense of the value of money, could spend the cash in a jiffy behind my back.’

  The dean was looking puzzled. ‘I’m sure I didn’t get you wrong, Lancelot. You were so definite the wedding wouldn’t be for months, or even years. That trip to your friends in the country seems to have changed you considerably.’

  ‘I didn’t go to friends. I can tell you, Dean – after all, you’re to be my best man. I went to a place for sexual rejuvenation.’

  ‘Good God.’

  ‘Dr de Hoot’s Analeptic Clinic. In Kent. And damn good it is, too.’

  ‘Good God.’

  ‘There’s a preparation they use – secret formula, of course – which makes you feel a new man. A much younger new man.’

  ‘Good God.’

  ‘You seem shocked.’

  ‘I think I am entitled to be. For you, a professional man, a man of status–’

  ‘But I told you, marriage to a younger woman for a man of my age is a damn sight riskier than taking up motor-racing at Brands Hatch. I need all the help I can get. Those injections could prove absolutely life-saving. Besides, my dear Dean, all my career I’ve tried to leave my patients entirely satisfied, and I see no reason to abandon my principles now.’

  The dean rose. ‘That’s your affair, I suppose. Now I must be off to the hospital. I’ve a ward-round at ten.’

  ‘Leave The Times, will you? I like to amuse myself with the crossword.’

  The dean made for the door. He paused. ‘What did you say the name of that place was?’

  ‘Dr de Hoot’s Analeptic Clinic.’

  ‘H’m,’ said the dean thoughtfully, leaving the room.

  Sir Lancelot started reading the dean’s paper. He looked up as he heard a gentle click. Muriel had softly slipped into the dining-room and was standing against the closed door, breathing heavily.

  ‘Sir Lancelot, could I have a word with you?’

  ‘Certainly, my dear. Come to something tricky in your surgery?’

  ‘It’s not about work. It’s about men.’

  ‘Much more interesting.’

  ‘You see, I am in love.’

  ‘Don’t look so worried about it. It’s an endemic condition at your age.’

  ‘At least, I think I am. I thought I was once before, then I thought I wasn’t. Now I’m worried that I’ll think that I was only thinking I was once again. Though I don’t really think so.’

  ‘Quite.’ Sir Lancelot stroked his beard.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Someone in the hospital?’ She shook her head vigorously. ‘Socially acceptable?’

  ‘Oh, yes. He runs an antique boutique.’

  ‘Wants to marry you?’

  She lowered her eyes. ‘I don’t know. But the other night he took me to a discotheque and then asked me back to his place – he lives over the boutique – for a…well, Sir Lancelot, I’m not frigid or anything like that, and I know a lot of girls do, I mean, quite nice girls, but I don’t know…I suppose I’ve had rather a lot of brainwashing on the subject from father,’ she ended a little pathetically.

  ‘My dear, don’t apologize for your morals. Anyway, the pleasures of self-discipline are sadly underestimated. Nothing is quite so delightful as a feeling of smugness.’

  ‘But if I don’t let him, he’ll think I don’t love him.’

  ‘There are surely other ways of expressing your appreciation of his attentions?’

  ‘What other ways?’

  ‘Taking an interest in his work, let us say. Men always find that flattering, whether they’re safebreakers or surgeons. He’s an antique seller? Well, think of some means you can help him with this somewhat esoteric occupation.’

  Muriel looked brighter. ‘Yes, I’m sure I can find something. I’m so glad I thought of asking you. I could have gone to father with the problem, of course, but he seems to think that I shouldn’t have any sort of sex life before I have some letters after my name. You won’t tell him I’ve spoken to you, will you?’ she added anxiously. ‘I’ve already had to fib this morning about my lecture being cancelled.’

  ‘I have the discretion of a particularly taciturn oyster.’

  Once alone, he produced his pencil and started on the crossword. He had briskly changed an able cop into a placebo when he became uneasily aware of some other living creature in the room. He looked up expecting to find Miss MacNish’s cat, but instead encountered George staring with his large glasses through the doorway.

  ‘Either come in or go out, but kindly shut that ruddy door before I die of frostbite.’

  George jumped inside, shut the door with a quick motion, and stood against it in the attitude of a timid spy facing the firing-squad. Sir Lancelot looked at him bleakly. He was less well disposed to clamant young men than young women.

  ‘I presume you told a lie this morning, about your lecture being cancelled?’

  George looked alarmed. ‘How did you know that, Sir Lancelot?’

  ‘Let us not concern ourselves. I take it you want my advice about something? Money, women, or drugs?’

  ‘Oh, neither, Sir Lancelot…though perhaps it’s a woman, in a way. The fact is, I want to give up medicine.’

  ‘I fail to see the connection.’

  ‘I want to get married. Please don’t ask to whom–’

  ‘The au pair girl. Go on.’

  George licked his lips. ‘So I want to make some money now. I want to be independent. Of father. I think he’d like me to get my Fellowship in surgery before I even took a bird to the movies.’

  ‘And how do you propose to acquire this independence? Hawking encyclopedias at the door?’

  ‘Script-writing. For the box. I’ve had a couple of sketches on already. Under another name, of course, so dad wouldn’t know. I’m sure I’ve got a future in it. And I’m not cut out for medicine at all. Dad only made me go in for it because he couldn’t think what else to do with me. I’m not like Muriel. She’s a real Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. But of course dad won’t hear of me leaving St Swithin’s. So what am I going to do?’ he ended imploringly.

  ‘It is a matter of supreme indifference to me what you do–’ Sir Lancelot paused. He gave a smile. The chance of a little harmless fun at the dean’s expense occurred to him. ‘The answer is perfectly simple. If you can’t voluntarily get out of St Swithin’s you can always have yourse
lf chucked out of the place.’

  ‘But how could I possibly manage that?’

  ‘Good grief, man, are you modern students lilylivered, or simply lacking in imagination? When I was a lad, we had to bend all our efforts simply to avoid that particular fate every Saturday night.’

  George scratched his head. ‘All right,’ he said firmly. ‘I’ll do my best. That is, my worst.’

  ‘And good luck to you.’

  George scuttled away guiltily as the housekeeper appeared.

  ‘What is it, Miss MacNish?’

  ‘I’ve made another Dundee cake, Sir Lancelot. I wondered if you’d care for a slice or two with your morning coffee?’

  ‘Calories, calories,’ he sighed. ‘But it would be most acceptable.’

  ‘And what would you like for your dinner tonight? It’s a long time past Burns’ Night, but I know you’re fond of haggis.’

  ‘It always makes the dean sick.’

  ‘Och, I’ll boil him an egg. It won’t do him any harm. Would you believe it, Sir Lancelot, he locked away the best brandy? I’ve switched the bottles back again. To think of you having to drink the cheap stuff!’ She started clearing up the dishes. ‘I am glad you decided to stay with the dean. They’re a nice enough family, but it’s not the same as looking after a real gentleman. I look back on those days as the happiest in my life, I really do. Oh, there’s someone waiting to see you. A Dr Grimsdyke.’

  Sir Lancelot’s eyebrows shot up. ‘I wonder what he’s after? You’d better show him in.’

  Grimsdyke sat at the breakfast-table and accepted a cup of lukewarm coffee. He came to the point at once. ‘It’s about Miss Gray, sir. The girl who muddled up your X-rays. She wants her old job back at St Swithin’s. I wondered if you’d put in a good word for her?’

  ‘Me? The victim?’

  ‘It wasn’t really her fault, sir, but mine. And I particularly think she deserves a career. I intend myself to do some proper medicine again in hospital, which isn’t very well paid.’

  ‘I fail to see the connection, but both projects seem praiseworthy enough.’ He thought for some moments. ‘I’ll see if the senior radiologist is in a forgiving frame of mind. It’s the least I can do for you, I suppose, after that splendid treatment you arranged for me in the clinic.’

  Grimsdyke looked concerned. ‘I hoped you were doing this more as a personal favour than a return for professional services.’

  ‘Why should you say that? Those injections were absolutely terrific. It was quite embarrassing this morning when the little Swedish girl brought in my early cup of tea.’

  ‘Sir…you suggested the formula should be published in the medical Press. Would you like me to disclose it to you?’

  ‘I’d be very interested. Though don’t forget I’m a surgeon, not a biochemist. I can’t understand a lot of complicated chemical symbols.’

  ‘I think you’ll understand this one, sir. It’s H2O.’

  ‘What!’

  Grimsdyke tapped his forehead. ‘The effect is felt up here, sir. Very powerfully.’

  ‘To think! De Hoot was charging twenty pounds a jab for them.’

  ‘That’s all part of the treatment, sir.’

  Sir Lancelot slumped in his chair. ‘You’re quite right – the effect has left me. Gone. Pht. Just like that.’

  ‘I thought you should know the truth, sir. As a matter of fact, I never thought the hocus-pocus would work on you.’

  ‘I appreciate your frankness.’ Sir Lancelot suddenly sounded weary. ‘It was an honourable gesture on your part.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  There was a pause. ‘Very well. No more can be done or said about it. I am going to St Swithin’s this afternoon. I shall put in a word for your radiographer. Now leave me. I want to think.’

  Grimsdyke rose awkwardly. ‘Good-bye, sir.’

  ‘Good-bye, Grimsdyke,’ said Sir Lancelot in a voice of doom.

  He sat for some minutes staring blankly at the remains of his breakfast. ‘I feel so old,’ he muttered. ‘So old. And I’m to be married. On Friday week. Oh God!’

  20

  Just before six o’clock that evening, Eric Cavendish was being driven in the Mercedes down a Chelsea street leading towards Godfri’s studios in the converted garage. Like all London side-streets, the kerbs were lined by an unbroken row of parked cars, which the chauffeur searched hopefully for a gap.

  ‘Double-park here a minute,’ the actor instructed him. ‘If the fuzz show up, just say it’s Eric Cavendish.’

  He climbed out, flicking a speck from his stylish new suit. He had prepared himself with particular care that evening. For his last day at Dr de Hoot’s clinic he had asked for double doses of injections, and every time the needle went in he thought of twenty-year-old Stella.

  He squeezed himself between two cars, walked jauntily a few yards along the pavement, then turned into a short road between two high buildings which led to the studio. He noticed two men in white coats standing in the middle of this passageway, between them on the ground a white-painted metal drum the size of a pressurized beer-cask. Their attitude vaguely struck him as strange. They had their heads cocked and seemed to be listening to it.

  ‘Good evening,’ he called genially.

  ‘Oh, sir!’ cried one of the white-coated figures in alarm. ‘Do you know where you are?’

  ‘In Chelsea, London, I guess.’

  ‘How terrible!’ exclaimed the other. ‘You just stepped right into it.’

  Eric Cavendish came to a halt, frowning. ‘Into what?’

  ‘Didn’t you see?’ said the first urgently. ‘The notice.’

  Eric Cavendish’s eyes followed his agitated finger in the direction of a large white card set against the opposite wall.

  METROPOLITAN POLICE

  DANGER!

  RADIOACTIVITY

  KEEP OUT!

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked in puzzlement. ‘Has the bomb dropped, or something?’

  ‘There’s been an accident,’ the second man told him. ‘Most unfortunate. Van taking radioisotopes to the hospital – run into by a taxi – right there on the corner – container split open – stuff all over the shop.’

  ‘It’s 131-iodine.’

  ‘Emits beta and gamma radiation.’

  ‘Half-life of eight days.’

  ‘Settles in the thyroid gland.’

  ‘Is there any danger?’ Eric Cavendish falteringly asked the smaller of the two.

  ‘Danger!’ Terry Summerbee gave a short laugh. ‘He asks if there’s any danger, Doctor!’

  ‘I shouldn’t like to be in that poor soul’s shoes, eh, Doctor?’ agreed Ken Kerrberry more grimly.

  ‘That’s the Geiger counter.’ Terry indicated the metal cask. ‘Just you listen.’

  Eric Cavendish held his breath. He heard a ticking as loud as a cheap alarm-clock.

  ‘Now, wait a minute…’ The actor looked anxiously from one to the other. They were clearly doctors – they had stethoscopes sticking from the pockets of their white coats. They were young, but he supposed those clever researchers in radioactivity generally were. They spoke in an extremely learned fashion. ‘But what about you two?’ he demanded. ‘Shouldn’t you be dressed up like a couple of astronauts?’

  ‘We’re all right,’ Terry told him. ‘We’ve taken the antidote.’

  ‘That’s 14-carbon,’ Ken said briefly. ‘Half-life, five thousand six hundred years.’

  ‘But…but what are the effects?’

  ‘Sterility, derangement of the germ-plasm, and impotence.’

  Oh, no!

  ‘That’s for a start,’ Terry added. ‘The long-term ones I should hesitate to mention.’

  ‘What am I to do?’ Eric Cavendish cried hopelessly.

  ‘Thank God, we can save you.’

  ‘You must be decontaminated instantly.’

  ‘I’ll do anything, Doctor…but right now,’ he remembered, ‘I’ve got a date.’

  ‘Instantly,’ Ken repeated
. ‘Or I certainly can’t be answerable for the consequences.’

  ‘Nor I,’ Terry agreed. ‘To you or to unborn generations.’

  ‘Here comes the ambulance now.’

  ‘Thank heavens, Doctor! The patient’s in luck.’

  ‘Not a moment to lose.’

  ‘Already it may be too late.’

  Eric Cavendish looked anxiously at the door of the studio, then at an ambulance backing into the cul-de-sac. ‘I’ve got a car and a chauffeur.’

  ‘A chauffeur!’ said Ken. ‘Poor man. Tell him to drive away instantly. He may still be all right. In we get. Doctor, don’t forget the Geiger counter.’

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ asked Eric Cavendish in anguish.

  ‘St Swithin’s Hospital. We specialize in cases like yours.’

  The actor shouted some instructions to his chauffeur. The ambulance doors clanged. It drove at speed towards St Swithin’s, with all the policemen holding up the traffic.

  Stella was already waiting outside the studio when a few minutes later Grimsdyke turned the corner. ‘Sorry I’m late, love,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I hope you were expecting me?’

  ‘Of course I was, Gaston.’

  ‘And no one else?’

  She hesitated just a second. ‘No, no one else at all.’

  ‘Not this Eric Cavendish bloke?’ She pressed against his chest. ‘I don’t suppose he’s even thinking of you now–’

  She broke away. ‘That notice – against the wall!’ He inspected it and laughed. ‘Oh, that? Probably some student joke.’

  Eric Cavendish was certainly not thinking of Stella, nor of anything except himself. He lay on a stretcher in the ambulance while the two doctors discussed his case between themselves. Though he was lost with the medical terminology, everything they said seemed progressively frightening.

  ‘Am I going to live?’ he cried.

  ‘That remains to be seen.’

  ‘Oh, God.’

  ‘Science will do its best for you, of course.’

  ‘But why wasn’t there some warning – something on TV or the radio?’

  ‘You mean you didn’t hear it?’